Four Outs???

I love baseball. 

Memories of my childhood include laying in my bed listening to the Red Sox play as I drifted of to sleep on warm summer nights.  My whole childhood and youth were filled with seasons of Red Sox games because my parents were fans.  Ok. . . my mom was more of a fanatic.  She was normally quite mild mannered, so hearing her call the pitcher a bum and ranting about the manager-du-jour was pretty amusing.  During those years I was a fair weather fan who mostly watched the games because they were on- not because I was interested.

Then there were the dark years. . . I never watched a game during college or in my early years of marriage.  Colby and Parker had no effect on my tv viewing habits, but then came Reed.  I swear the child was born with a baseball in his hand!  He would watch games when he was just a little guy, but the whole thing got out of hand when we moved my mom to Utah.  The Alzheimer's was getting bad and one of the only things that settled her down was watching a game.  We immediately signed up for DirecTV's Extra Innings so that we would have games.  we also started recording games as a hedge against winter.  Little did we know we were creating a monster.

So. . . Reed finally got to play on the Red Sox this year.  He loves putting on the uniform- I think he thinks that he is heading off to play with Papelbon and Big Papi.  I got to the game late tonight, but just in time to see Reed snag this grounder and throw the runner out at first.  The thing that made me laugh was the wad of bubble gum he had going.  That reminded me of my brother Bruce.  He ALWAYS chewed bubble gum.

Any way. . .

About the four outs.  Our pitching was in the toilet.  We had walked the first three batters up, so the bases were loaded.  At this point we were ahead 7-3, but the parents were thinking that we were in big trouble.  The batter hit an in-field pop fly which was caught (out 1) and the ball was thrown to home plate where the catcher tagged the incoming runner. (out 2)  Then  the ball was thrown to third where the incoming runner was tagged (out 3) but he had actually been on 1st base and had passed the kid on second, so they were out anyway (out 4?).  It was crazy, but the game was saved!  We went on to win after the next inning.

Little League baseball just about kills you to watch.  There is not enough time spent on the basic rules and since the rules "change" every two years as the kids progress to a new age group, there is always plenty to learn.  But, there is never any lack of excitement!